Gleaning Facebook: Tiny Flowers

 

Very tiny wonders on the Riverwalk

Sorrell again

A cultivated something, I think, under the Robert Redden bridge

DYC

Another teeny bit of beauty.

A common violet.

A ubiquitous something in the mint family, I think.

I darkened this so the detail in a constellation of daisies would show.

Yellow sorrell has found a bit of soil in a stone wall.

A composite, no doubt.

Some sort of pea?

Look at this tiny complication of bloom.

Are these just eensy bluets?

Another tiny wonder

White clover

Millions of these

Close up a red clover is so much more beautiful.

A plantain ribbon rosette decorates a stone wall on South Broad.

Blackberry blossums

Gleaning Facebook: Spring Tinies

I set out to record some of the plants in Mama's woods and the tiny gardens in the average yard.

These stunning little flowers are everywhere. So diminuative that we rarely notice.

The invasive periwinkle (Vinca sp.) Thirty years ago or so I pulled two or three of these out of th eground at Mama & Daddy's little shack at Indian Springs Camp Meeting. I stuck 'em in a tiny waste area at our house on Cedar Avenue. Now they are everywhere.

The little strawberry blossum you might notice, but how many folks stop to contemplate the goegeous, tiny, white stars .. I have no idea what they are.

 

Southern Adder's Tongue.

This little rose is under the Turner-McCall Bridge on the Riverwalk.
Christie Hufsteter Boyd:  think this is the Cherokee Rose. Very small and tiny and very beautiful.

The little wood behind my mother's house is home to lots of violets.

This is either Solomon's Plume or Solomon's Seal -- in Mama's wood.

Everyone's favorite, Toxicodendron radicans or Poison Ivy. See the glossy red baby leaves. Leaflets three? Let it be!

Spring Beauties along Mama's little creek.

Another Spring Beauty.

Wild Ginger or Heartleaf or Little Brown Jug or whatever you want to call it -- in Mama's wood.

Crossvine along the Riverwalk.

This cottony little tree is giving its seeds to the river winds just south of the Oostanaula Bbridge near State Mutual Stadium.

These glorious little spikes of blue decorate the margins of the wetland around State Mutual Stadium.

City workers have trimed out some of the trees along the Riverwalk near the stadium. Here in an inspired moment of gas-powered creativity they manufactured a recliner and two matching more upright chairs from a stump and two sections of bole. The model is my bride.

Two tiny Sensitive Fern fiddleheads in Mama's back yard.
Christie Hufstedler Boyd: Up in upstate New York, they sell these in the spring in the produce section at Wegman's grocery store. They are very expensive. They are also sold in a vegetable medley that you saute.

Please make a donation.

Sheila and I will walk in the Music City Half-Marathon in Nashville one week from today. We will be walking with many family and friends all wearing purple t-shirts. Here's the back of one:


And here is the reason:
This beautiful little girl, my great niece Lily, is in a fight with childhood cancer. She was seven when she was diagnosed last December first with leukemia. Now eight, she is waging a fierce battle. I have enlisted in her army, but we need help. Research to find treatments and cures for childhood cancer is hampered by insufficient funding. That's hard to believe but true.

If you would like to help you can go to this safe site to make an electronic contribution. Any amount will help. It is easy, painless, and ALL the proceeds go to fight childhood cancer.

The learn more about Lily and her cause go to www.lilysgarden.org.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Sunday Concert - Cry Me A River

(from the AP and Washinton Post)

I have been intending to post the beautiful rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables sung by Susan Boyle. She is the woman who shocked the "judges" and world audience on Britain's Got Talent the British equivalent of American Idol. This morning, thanks to Facebook friend Tracy Lawler I found this recording of Susan's "Cry Me a River".

Gorgeous.
Click the pic at the top for a Jeane McManus take on Susan in this morning's Washington Post.
Here are both songs (Click a pic) for your listening pleasure:

I Went To The Tea-Bagger Rally

I attended Dayton’s big Tea-Bag Rally yesterday. Big crowd. The rally was held at Courthouse Square, where, 150 years ago Abraham Lincoln once spoke. It was great that 8000 people cared enough to take the trouble to come down town on a chilly afternoon to express themselves politically. I kept looking around wondering, “Who are these people, what are they thinking, what is motivating them?"

I wrote a blog that asked, “After rousing speeches, what, really do the Tea-Baggers have in mind doing? Throwing tantrums? Marching in the streets? What if they find that 70% of Americans simply reject their point of view? Can they accept the verdict of democracy?”

Making democracy work has been the theme of a lot of my posts over the last couple of years. Just last month at our South of Dayton Democratic Club (I’m the VP), the guest speaker was Mark Owens, Chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Party. During the question period, I asked Mark to explain to the group the Party's policy of primary endorsement. I made a post the next day with the headline: Mark Owens Says Most Montgomery Dems Approve The Party’s Suppression Of Primary Participation

My gripe is that the Montgomery County Democratic Party is controlled by a small clique of well meaning individuals who feel that the Party is best advanced via antidemocratic practices, such as suppressing primary participation. This clique puts Party over democracy. The ends (electing Democrats), in their view, justifies the means (antidemocratic processes). The result is that a lot of Democrats sent to congress are lackluster -- lacking in ideas, vision, and capacity or inclination for authentic leadership. Loyal Party workers, who have a source of campaign funding, are the candidates the Party endorses. We fiddle while our democracy burns. The point is, our system of democracy is failing us -- at every level. We are failing to find the best and the wisest among us to take the responsibility of governance, and we are paying the price.

I don’t suppose the Tea-Baggers really want democracy to work. Tea-Baggers take hard positions that have enthusiastic support, but these positions are far from representing a majority view. If our democracy works, the positions advocated by Tea-baggers don't stand a chance -- but Tea-Baggers want their positions to prevail, regardless.

I concluded my post, “At the Tea-Bagger rally I heard the cheer: USA. USA. USA. The USA the Tea-Baggers want is a USA with small government, few regulations, low taxes, free market. I’m wondering if these grassroots activists, who cared enough to show up at a downtown rally, could begin to buy into a different view of the USA? Could they begin to see something more important than low taxes? How about democracy? Isn't democracy more important than low taxes? The ascendant view of the USA, I believe, I hope, that more and more people will want to support is a view that sees the USA as a place where “the people” work together to build democracy, build community, build dialogue, build the Common Good, a USA in which everyone can lead a secure and prosperous life — not a USA where a 30% minority somehow manages to impose its will on the majority.”

My first post for DaytonOS, Sept, 2007, was, The Ascending Issue In Our Democracy Is Democracy Itself. My conclusion to that article said, “The idea of democracy, itself, I believe, will increasingly drive our politics, and increasingly the idea of democracy will be the benchmark used for evaluating the actions and the merit of political parties.”

That, at the time, was my argument to Mark Owens and subsequently to the Executive Committee when I urged they change their primary endorsement policy. I lost the argument, but it’s nice that next May, 2010, a whole new Montgomery County Central Committee will be elected. The new Central Committee will then have the authority to completely reorganize the County Party -- starting with the election of a new Chairperson. In 2006, at the last reorganization meeting only 105 Central Committee members showed up out of 200 or so elected. If every precinct were represented, 548 Central Committee members would be in attendance. We have a system of democracy already in place. We simply need to use it.

I think it might be fun to imagine a speech I might give at a Tea-Bagger rally -- using these ideas in this post.

My flowers are blooming.

The Real Tea Party

The Fox News viewers around the country are all het up to tea-bag our waterways in protest of the fact that their taxes just went down! Well, I doubt you'll find many rich folks besides Sean Hannity tea-bagging today. He and his ilk are the guys who are not getting tax breaks under the Obama administration.

My friend Mike Bock has posted a good article from Vic Harris contrasting these modern "tea baggers" with the Boston tea partiers:

The modern day “Tea-baggers” are not protesting their lack of representation. They are protesting taxes in general. Tax protest is always “red-meat” for conservatives, but, the fact is, President Obama and the Democrats have just passed the largest middle-class tax-cut in history. Let me write that again: the largest middle-class tax-cut in history. Most Tea-Baggers, I imagine, have incomes of less than $250,000 a year, so most Tea-baggers, therefore, are protesting high taxes even though President Obama and the Democrats just cut their taxes. For the rich conservatives who will watch the protests at home on the “Fair and Balanced” Fox “News,” a network that has been shamelessly promoting the events, their taxes will go up in 2010, but will still be 10 percentage points lower than they were under their Patron Saint Ronald Reagan.

Read more here.

Extremists in the Wings

The abortion bomber at the '96 olympics missed me by only 24 hours. Can anyone deny that there ARE dangerous right-wing extremists in the US? That doesn't reflect on responsible anti-abortion conservatives any more than the existence of the Simbianese Liberation Army should stain my reputation or that of any other thoughtful Democrat.

Violent groups and individuals like the Klan, neo-Nazis, doctor-shooting abortion extremists, the Oklahoma City bombers, etc. are out there. That's just fact. Our government should, within the strictures of the Bill of Rights, be on the watch out for them -- and left-wing extremists, of whom there are also examples.... That does not mean our government should be monitoring you or me -- unless there is enough evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant.

A well-known conservative commentator (near and dear to me) has taken great umbrage that our Homeland Security department has published a ten-page report on the potential dangers posed by right-wing extremist groups.

I personally am glad that HS is not overlooking the Oklahoma-City-Right-Wing-Bomber-types and Olympic-Right-Wing-Bomber-types while they concentrate on protecting us from the Middle-Eastern-Right-Wing-bomber-types. If you don't mind, I'd even like to be protected from Left-Wing-Bomber-types and those Wild-Eyed-Moderate-Bomber-types.

But yes, dear conservatives, complain. Those sqeaky wheels help to keep the whole constitutional system oiled. Just don't fuss at the noise the ACLU and I make when a Republican President is at the throttle and decides to spy on Americans without warrants.

We should be eternally vigilant to protect everyone's civil rights.

Gleaning Facebook: Hail!

Pretty scary.

Terrell Shaw
This is my hand, so I tagged it. BTW we have changed the name of the sandy male kitten to "Beau". (Actually it may be "Bo". Your Mom didn't spell it for me. I almost caught one of the others. I touched it, but it was too quick for me.

Lillian Shaw
You mean BarackObama is now Bo? I guess I can live with that. Not only is it Barack Obama's initials, but it is the name of the first puppy. Good choice, mom and pop.

Nora Matthews
what is that a pic of?

Terrell Shaw
These are hailstones! One of 'em is as big as a pingpong ball!

Gleaning Facebook: Reigning Cats and Dogs

 

The kitten managed to fall into the space between the kitchen and "mudroom" walls. I thought a hole in the wall would be less trouble than a divorce so I found a saw and did the deed. Sheila reached in and retreived the frightened little guy. See the love in her eyes? This is the kitten that would become Waffles -- Lillian's kitty.

The next day we found another little fellow had fallen off the roof. Lily, the neighbor dog, took to her right away. This kitten has been re-Christened "Snowball" by my great niece Sophie.
Carol Shaw Johnston: Snowball is full grown now, and is an absolutely gorgeous cat - log, silky fur - much too pretty to be a boy!

When we reunited the wild Mama with her progeny, up the dogwood she went with her prize. And led me to her secret hideaway. Waffles and her mommy.

Eventually we found they were triplets. Lillian plans to take one back to Macon. Carol can still have one if she likes. So at least one free kitten is available folks. Let me know. L-R Snowball, Troy, Waffles
Carol Shaw Johnston: If they're outside cats, I want two - I guess I have to wait till summer, though, don't I?

Gleaning Facebook: A New Marchallia

How exciting to be a Facebook friend to a renowned botanist and get to see pictures of a previously unknown and as yet nameless, and by the way gorgeous, wildflower. It is a Marshallia. Photo by Andy Walker

We have some of its cousins in the prairies near Cave Spring. Check near the end of this post.

Marshallia species novum [picture by Andy Walker]

 

Gleaning Facebook: Loveliest of Trees

 

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride 
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go 
To see the cherry hung with snow.

-A.E. Housman

Our native Black Cherry is a beautiful tree. I always enjoy watching it bloom. There are more showy trees. Its foreign and cultivated cousins are spectacular. Housman's poem makes a suitable anthem for nature lovers everywhere. The brevity of life and the glory of nature propel me often toward the woods.

Farmers are not lovers of cherry trees. The leaves of a cherry can make life briefer still for livestock -- they contain cyanide and can kill a hungry cow very quickly. 

Comment:

Tracy S. Lawler
I was first introduced to this stanza of the poem via the Baby Einstein videos that my kidlets have watched from birth...it was with a cherry tree in bloom photo, too! Beautiful.